The Challenge to the basic definition of Documentary by Serg Daniele

Again and as ever before, documentary making is at the centre of new debates about reality and reality and reality and realism and role of photography and cinematography in modern society.

Documentary is the loose and often highly contested label given, internationally, to certain kinds of film and television, which reflect and report on 'the real' through the use of recorded images and the sounds of actuality. Just how the transformation of bits of 'real' appearance into combined image is managed, and then just how the images and sounds are combined into exposition and argument is what I will examine.

Documentary work is almost always premised on a certain epistemology which itself is grounded in the recording of the particular, physical real by camera and microphone. Thus a very specific kind of fidelity to the real obtained by cinematographic means, becomes subsumed within more ambitious levels of possible 'fidelity' (that of a speaker's testimony to the events described) for instance.

As a practice and a form, documentary is strongly informationalist (and therefore requires a level of 'accuracy') but it is also an exercise in creativity, an art form drowning on interpretative imagination both in perceiving and using the sounds and images of the living scene to communicate 'the real'. Nevertheless, it is a question not of what we see but how this is put forward for our understanding that becomes crucial.

As Plato himself put it: "When the mind's eye is fixed on objects illuminated by truth and reality (the sun), it understands and knows them, and its possession of intelligence is evident; but when it is fixed on the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence".\

Documentary's territory as a concept or practice occupies no fixed frontiers. It mobilised no finite inventory of techniques, addresses no set number of issues, and adopts no completely known taxonomy of forms, styles, or modes. The 'boundaries' between the various modes of documentary are often blurred and they are becoming more so; therefore documentary film practice is the site of contestation and change. Nevertheless a documentary film nearly purports to present factual information about the world outside the film and they are typically contrasted with fiction films, and typically come to us labelled as such; this automatically leads us to assume that the persons, places, and events exist and that the information presented about them is trustworthy and verifiable. Despite the fact that within different modes of representation, there exist certain recurrent features or conventions.

Throughout their historical moments we can easily distinguish at least four dominant modes by the distinctive organisational patterns, with which they represent reality. At their height, each mode was conveying a fresh new perspective on reality which had naturally risen from the limitations and constraints of the previous one, and each naively in turn believed that their credibility was the best possible.

The modes followed each other: The first mode to be established, after big dissatisfaction with the entertainment qualities of the fictional film, was around the 1920s and was labelled as 'expository' documentary. This mode gradually crossed international borders for almost 40 years, based on the Voice-of-God commentary and poetic perspectives. It sought to disclose information about the historical world itself. The expositional mode usually also accommodates elements of interviews, as we can further see in 'Housing Problems' by Anstey/Elton, U.K., 1935, but these tend to be subordinate to the argument offered by the film itself, generally via unseen 'Voice of God' or 'Authority' (white, male, western, unchallenged, unidentified). The essential communicative idea of 'Housing Problems' is testimony: the shooting sequences in which British slum-dwellers, placed in their own houses, give an uninterrupted account, in direct address to camera, of their living conditions.

The basic organisation here can be seen to be straightforward; the problem is established in visuals and in commentary, with the reinforcement of four direct testimonies and with the use of cutaways to illustrate specific problems mentioned. Then it moves on to the proposal for architectural solutions, and this leads onto the new housing block caretaker's brief account, in regard to maintenance and finally, the testimony of two rehoused slum-dwellers, which document their improved quality of life.

The overall structure resembles one of the many structures with which we are well familiar, and in part could be seen as a work of radical ethnography, giving marginalised or unheard voices a chance to express their problems publicly. However, this view would silence other problems: firstly that the work was commissioned by the gas industry which subtly uses it as a promotional work for them, and secondly, that the Civic Authorities who are seen to be taking action for the replacement of the slums, perhaps helps god speak. Ultimately, isn't the question this mode raises and fails to answer, is that the witness's evidence only contributes to someone else's argument, and that their given testimony is within a frame they cannot control and may not understand?

The next stage in history is the 'Observational' mode or 'Cinema Verite' which was both a product of and contributor to the cultural politics of the 1960s - its reality, authenticity, spontaneity, unmediated truth, and direct access to emotion was established thanks to the availability of more mobile, synchronous recording equipment and dissatisfaction with the moralising quality of expository type of documentary. The observational mode stresses the non-interventation of the filmmaker. They cede control over the events that occur in front of the camera. Where synchronous sound and relatively long takes are the norm, and in turn, they all take place in a specific moment and historical place.

In Fred Wiseman's Hospital 1970, we have the opportunity to look in and overhear something of the lived experience of others and gain some sense of the distinct rhythms of everyday life in the psychiatric department of the hospital. We, the viewer, as the various events of the day unfold, are expected to take a practical testing of subjective responses as an eligible participant in, as well as observer of, the historical world represented; in other words, we are placed in a position observing an interaction from which the camera restrains itself. We are encouraged to believe that the isolated moment is a template of life as it is lived.

In the event where the psychiatrist is dealing with the welfare of a black patient, and is engaged in a hot conversation with a social worker, we are obviously encouraged to take our position with the Doctor, who has strongly battled over his patient's welfare rights. But, it is also true that, if the observational camera wasn't there it could well be that maybe such a fought but lost battle would never have taken place. Also at the moment when the Doctor turns to the camera, and says "She hung up on me", the film cuts to another scene rather then continue the shot and force the filmmaker to take responsibility for a reply.

This is an example of where the observational documentary fails to produce what it promised, in terms of conveying the sense of unmediated and unfettered access to the world. As a practice it intrudes upon people's lives in ways that they could irrevocably alter them. As in the case of the Psychiatrist seen as the conscientious Doctor who stands up for the people's rights; or by incrementing the myth of some social stereotype: like in the case of the hippy, where he personally admitted himself in hospital, during his supposedly bad acid trip, therefore left with the only option other then seeking institutional help. Obviously, such an event, can just participate to enforce the stereo typicality of a loser.

Of course, when the desire to see what is normally hidden or forbidden is associated with pleasure rather then social science, it is usually termed voyeurism. Such a pleasure is clearly afforded by the unethical intrusion or roaming of the camera of the observational cinema. This pleasure in witnessing and overhearing a scene is heightened whenever an action not normally seen in public is shown, or when someone exposes their real feeling or thoughts accidentally.

The lure of the spectacle, of the hidden revealed, has, however, also become a feature of much 'serious' documentary and factual television. These in turn created the need a presentation of a more visually elaborated and intertexually rich depiction, therefore moving towards newer forms for the direct presentation of reality; the somewhat undiscriminating, though widely employed, present day reality television.

The trends of 1990s increasing use of dramatisation and the development in factual television, has created popular television like the BBC program featured as a factual episode on the work of the police 'Police, action, camera' - 1994. Or the 'Do-it-yourself' home video movie or documentary, with its particular mix of verite-style authenticity footage. This hybridisation, the pleasure of the specular as access to knowledge is centred in the recent development of 'undercover' filming by applying the use of hidden micro-cameras to obtain footage that would otherwise be either difficult or impossible to obtain combining a direct voyeuristic appeal (watching those who are unaware of being watched) with the sense of role-play and risk associated with disguise.

The use of micro-cameras obviously raises a number of ethical questions about voyeurism, exploitation and surveillance, which have yet to be properly addressed. Naturally these have all been created in sake of the privileging of and our pleasure in our audio-visual senses as access to knowledge which the film itself subscribes to.

And it considered from a purely technical perspective, is nothing less than an outstanding exploitation of the available technology.

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